Tension has been boiling over from Blizzard and NetEase ending their licensing agreements in China and causing World of Warcraft and all Blizzard IPs to shut down this coming week in the country. Taking advantage of this uncertainty and mayhem, Chinese gaming giant Tencent has revealed their new MMO called Tarisland. While it admittedly looks pretty fun, there is just something strangely familiar about the title and fans have been quick to point it out.
The reveal trailer is full of extremely on the nose World of Warcraft references. The world itself has a cartoony appearance, with purple elves living atop a giant tree, archer armor pulled straight from Sylvanas Windrunner, an evil dragon crashing menacingly atop two castle towers, and more. There is even an airship battle with both vehicles looking like they have been copied and pasted from the Legion cinematic trailer. But the resemblance gets even worse when you check out the YouTube closed beta footage.
Several videos from the beta show off a race that looks strikingly like Tauren. They are even tribalistic in nature with mounts literally traced from Tauren Kodos complete with war drums strapped to their hind legs. Some of the footage shows a player exploring a floating city of magic that gives off way more than just a Dalaran vibe. The title even showed off what looks to be the addition of dragon riding from World of Warcraft’s latest expansion. To most, it is all just way too blatant to be an accident.
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World of Warcraft and other Blizzard titles will be unavailable in China starting on January 23. While Tarisland has no release date yet, Tencent seems to be jumping on this loss to replace it with something a little too familiar. Here’s hoping that Blizzard and NetEase work out their differences, or Chinese players may have to settle for a new MMO to call home.
